What is happening in Russian games market

Post Category →Games

Alexandra Pestretsova, former VP of marketing at Russian mobile game developer Game Insight joined Mail.ru European office as director of marketing. Mail.ru operates as My.com outside Russia.

Rumor has it after several years of unsuccessful experiments with B-class games on international markets, Mail.ru decided to go only for high budget free-to-play titles, namely World of Speed, Skyforge, Ground War: Tanks and one unannounced game from Obsidian Entertainment.

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I never knew that Russia (and of course all CIS countries) had a thriving indie scene. Even when around 500 people visited Games Night in Kyiv I thought that most of them just worked for the big guys – Wargaming, Ubisoft, Crytek, Nival.

But Oleg Chumakov proved me and other sceptics wrong. His Games Jam initiative striked right into hearts of many game developers. First Games Jam was just a test, but second one, organised with support from Kanobu.ru and Sergei Klimov gathered 420 projects in a matter of one month. You can see them here. Descriptions are in Russian, but artwork and screenshots should speak for themselves.

I’m honoured to be one of judges in Games Jam Kanobu and I’ve seen a lot of great game ideas while reviewing submissions. Hopefully at least some of those will become actual games.